20 July, 2012

“I’m afraid
there’s nothing we can do” said the father, his face grim. His tone matched the look on his face and to his
son, Sam, it was enough to bring the whole world crashing down around him. “Please” he pleaded. “Please do something. My life depends on this” he said, the tears
threatening to pour down his cheeks any moment.
It was to no avail. His father
would not budge. “Such things aren’t
meant for you and there’s no way we are going to let you do something like
this” said his father, now bristling and looking angry. “Don’t you start the waterworks. It’s not going to work with me” he added, a
tone of finality having crept into his words.

His house was
surrounded by tall green trees and lots of fresh food and he did have his
family around him all the time. Whether
that was a good thing or a bad thing, he knew not. He only understood what his parents had
always tried to instill in him. His
parents had always told Sam “you are luckier than most in this world. Many don’t have a roof over their heads, many
children like you do not have a proper meal for days together. You should not be having any complaints
whatsoever”.

Over a period of
time, he had come to believe in what his parents always told him. He knew that poverty was rampant around the
world, he knew that children had a very difficult life in many parts of the
world. Sam did not have any such
problems and he should be happy. But truth
be told, within his heart of hearts, he wanted more. He wanted much more than what he had.

Yes – he had a
home surrounded by greenery, he had no dearth of fresh food but there was one
thing he did not have. It was the one
thing he’d always yearned for – ever since he had been very little. It was the one thing he did not have – not
yet. But Sam, being Sam, was determined
to set this right too.

It had all
started with a visit from a stranger. It
had been totally unexpected and it had thrown him completely. His parents had been totally perplexed
too. They had not been able to make any
sense of what had happened and how the stranger had landed in their house but
that day had changed a lot of things. Sam
had realized that day that there were indeed things he was missing out on. The stranger had, unknowingly, seen to it
that these feelings crept in. And they
had. Oh ! How he yearned and craved for the things the
stranger had introduced him to.

Sam still
remembered that first touch – soft, silky, evoking feelings that should never
have had any place in his heart, to begin with.
But the feel of that first touch had stayed with him and he knew that it
would stay with him forever – as long as he lived. His parents would never understand this –
they didn’t even try to. “Such things
are not for us, such things are not for you” they would say, with that
“know-it-all” air that they expected him to concede to, without as much as a
murmur. But Sam was made of sterner
stuff. He was determined to find a way
out.

Every night,
when he went to bed, he would look at his treasure. The treasure that he had, without the
knowledge of his parents, stored away in
a little box. He would run his hands
through the silky tresses that she had left behind in his room the day she had
visited them. He revelled in their
softness, their silky sheen. They felt
like the softest of soft down feathers that his pillow was filled with. They smelt of fairy tales and all the nice
things that little beings often associate with fairy tales. They reminded him of the princesses in the
little books that his mother read to him at bedtime. He treasured those tresses, he cherished the
hair clippings that she had left behind in his room when she had stumbled upon
their home a few weeks back. She had
disappeared when she saw him and his parents.
But as she ran away from his home that day, she had looked at him,
looked into his eyes and the look in his eyes had found their mark. He knew she would come back someday and until
then, he was prepared to wait patiently.

That day, when
she had visited them, she had left a legacy behind. A legacy that set in motion things that one
would never have expected.

One night, Sam
decided that enough was enough. He had
to do something about this. He could not
just sit around and do nothing. Every
time he touched those soft , smooth, silky tresses, he could not help thinking
about the time he was losing, doing nothing.
He was waiting for things to sort themselves out but he knew that unless
he took matters in his own hand, he would never be able to get what he dreamed
of, every day, every night.

Sam opened his
small bag and took out the bottle. The
only image that floated in front of his eyes was that of hair, the silky,
golden tresses that had belonged to the girl who had visited them accidentally
a few months back. He could think of
just one thing - silky golden tresses that were so soft and smooth to the feel,
silky golden hair that was so glossy, silky hair that had so much bounce to it
that they seemed to have a life of their own.

He looked at his
own hair – all bristly, sharp, thick and unruly. He could still hear his father’s voice
ringing in his ears when he had said “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do
about this.” He still remembered the sympathetic look on his mother’s face as
she shook her head and said “Sam, this is what you were born with. Be happy with what you have. You can’t do much more than that. Get used to your rough hair.”

His hands shook
as he looked at the bottle in his hands.
The words on the bottle were short and sweet. “DOVE”, the bottle said. There
was a silhouette of a bird, spreading its wings and flying in the sky. “Freedom” was what the bottle meant to
Sam. The bird on the bottle, flying with
its wings spread in carefree abandon, embodied freedom to Sam. That bottle of shampoo meant freedom from the
rough, bristly hair that was growing on his head.

His fingers
shook a little as he opened the bottle and inhaled the aroma – the very same
aroma that still lingered in the tresses that had once belonged to that pretty
little girl who had accidentally visited his house. As he walked towards the shower, his bottle
of Dove shampoo in hand, he could imagine the soft lather that the shampoo
would create on his head, he could almost feel the silky softness that it would
leave behind on the hair on his head. He
could just imagine how surprised his friend would be when she came back to
visit them. He knew for sure that she
would come back to visit them because she had also forgotten her laptop in his
house. She would definitely come back
for that. He wanted his hair to be as
smooth and silky as hers, before she came back to visit.

“Let me make
sure I know how to use this” said Sam to himself, as he booted the laptop
computer that the visitor had left behind.
Once the monitor was glowing, inviting him into the vast expanse of the
internet, he typed in the words that he had found on the shampoo bottle “Dovehair-aware app”. As he waited for the
data to appear on screen, he looked at the pictures of some more people on the
screen. Some were golden haired, some
brown haired, some whose hair was jet black.
Some had beautiful long tresses and some others had short hair. Some were women, some were men. Yet, they all had one thing in common –
their hair was lustrous and silky
smooth.

A slow smile had
spread on Sam’s face as he headed towards the bathroom. “No. I
don’t have to live with bristly, rough hair anymore” he thought to himself, his
smile growing wider by the second.
“Thanks to Goldilocks, I now have my bottle of Dove Shampoo and
Conditioner”. “Very soon, I will have
the kind of hair I’ve always wanted, I’ve always loved – the kind of hair that
my parents said I could never ever have” he thought to himself.

“I’m glad I left
those bottles behind when I ran off in a hurry, Sam” said Goldilocks. As sure as Sam had been, Goldilocks had
indeed come back to visit and to get her laptop back from Sam. “I love the way my hair is now” said
Sam. “I used to have such rough hair
before. But you forgot those bottles of
shampoo and conditioner that day and that was the end of my hair problems” said
Sam.

“Annie !! Annie !!!
Wake up – or else you are going to be late for school.” The voice seemed to be coming from far far
away. Annie groggily opened her eyes,
only to find her mom’s face hovering over.
“Come on Annie, wakey wakey time” said Mum as she ran her hand through
Annie’s hair. “You need to have a
shampoo before you go off to school.
Wake up, darling. You really need
to have a shampoo Annie, and I don’t
want you complaining like you usually do” she said.

“I want to have
a shampoo today, Mama” said Annie. “Can
I use the bottle of Dove shampoo that keeps your hair soft and silky ?” asked
Annie, a glitter of mischief lighting up her eyes. “Mama, can you also use Dove conditioner on
my hair today ?” asked Annie, as she bounced off the bed and bounded off to the
bathroom.

“Sure thing,
darling” said Annie’s mom as she straightened Annie’s bed and put Annie’s books
away. As always, Annie had been sketching
pictures from books before she fell asleep.
“Her favourite book” said Annie’s mum softly, with a smile “She had been
sketching pictures from Goldilocks and
the three bears yesterday”. The computer in Annie’s room was still on and
the screen sprang to life as her mum moved the mouse around. “Dove hair aware app” said the words on the
screen. “Thank God for Dove and the Dove
hair aware app” thought Mum to herself “no wonder she’s all excited about
having a shampoo” thought Mum, as she shut Annie’s computer down. “Dove – here we come” thought Mom with a
smile and as she opened the curtains in Annie’s room, sunlight flooded into the
room, heralding the start of a new chapter in Annie’s life – one with soft,
silky, lustrous hair.

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About Me

I don many hats - a daughter, a wife, a mom to two (and still sane, by the way) and a full time teacher, to mention a few.
Writing has always been one of my passions and continues to be my mode of expressing my feelings, thoughts in my personal space.
This blog was essentially started, way back in 2006, to pen down the little tidbits,memoirs of The Nutty Siblings - Macadamia and Pecan's childhood.
Now, with the kids having grown up, the blog has indeed become a space where I pen down my thoughts as and when they demand to be penned down.
I love satire in all its aspects and of late, have embarked on a satirical journey on this blog, with regard with TamBrahm weddings. Many parts have already been penned and there are many more to come.
As life’s train chugs along, bringing along with it our share of the good’s, the bad’s and the in-between’s, as the kids grow up and we grow older, the little chronicles on Tiny Tidbits will hopefully continue to serve as those little windows , a little time machine that takes us on a humorous, engrossing trip, back in time.